Travel & Places
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First Camping Trip of the Season | Martin Dies Jr. State Park
Previous posts for this park: +Campsite Scenes +The Slough and Forest Trails | Martin Dies State Park +The Wildlife and Island Trails | Martin Dies State Park The first campout for the season didn’t start off quite on the right foot. Rain was predicted for at least Sunday but we ended up having a little of it on Saturday while we were setting up camp. We drove over early on Saturday morning and were making it a long weekend with Monday off. The last time we were at the park we had stayed at campsite 218 across from Gum Slough. I remember liking that little circle because there was no…
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A Short Jaunt on the Lone Star Trail
In early September we hit up our spot in Sam Houston National Forest for our annual family photos with Forest. The photo session, as it was last year, went very quickly with many grumpy faces all around. Actually, Chris and I weren’t as grumpy as last year, just Forest. He’s been better about taking photos the last few months so I expected it to be easier this year than last. Nope, not easier. We made it quick and then moved the car a quarter mile back down the road to the intersection of the Lone Star Hiking Trail so we could do a short hike. The hike was indeed short…
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Pedernales River Explorations Part II
Palafoxia callosa Cooperia drummondii Pluchea white mist flower—not sure, one of these three–> Ageratum, Conoclinium, Eupatorium I couldn’t find a white version in my Texas wildflowers book(s). Senna lindheimeriana While Chris fishes along the Pedernales, I usually take time to poke around the fringes of the rocks to see what plants or invertebrate wildlife may be lurking about to photograph. Sometimes Forest is with me playing in the rocks or whatnot, but as he’s gotten older he’s been able to follow directions and stay around with Chris while Chris fishes. We were out one morning along the river and as I was poking about looking at the early fall wildflowers…
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Pedernales River Explorations
Pedernales Falls State Park is one of those state parks you wish was in your backyard. A park that you could easily pop into on a weekday after work or for a good weekend adventure. In some ways, mostly in its size, definitely not in its habitat, it reminds me a bit of Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Florida. Large enough to be able to roam freely in the ‘backcountry’ on a wide array of trails but also with river access. River access here is a bit different than at JD, mostly in that no one is paddling along like they do on the Loxahatchee River. It’s mostly a fishing…
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Wildflowers at McKinney Falls State Park
Let’s return back to McKinney Falls State Park over Easter weekend and wrap-up our time there with some wildflowers (with a side of vines, trees, and shrubs—it was spring, things were blooming!). According to my post drafts, I have another post for Pedernales Falls State Park that I didn’t get around do. Looks like I’ll be sharing another post from there soon! Lupinus texensis, the Texas bluebonnet Callirhoe involucrata, winecup Gaura coccinea Possibly Bidens (aristosa?) Onosmodium bejariense, soft-hair marbleseed Nemophila phacelioides, Texas baby blue eyes Tradescantia ohiensis, ‘alba’ version Torilis arvensis, spreading hedge parsley, I think Amorpha fruticosa, false indigo bush Clematis texensis Achillea millefolium, yarrow Allium canadense Salvia farinacea,…
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Juniper and Fern Hammock Springs
*Lots of photos, write-up and videos at the end!* #*(&#$*(& Air potato Palamedes swallowtails After our paddle on the Juniper Run, we had nothing else on the agenda so we opted to hang out at the Juniper Springs pool itself and take a walk over to its sister spring, Fern Hammock springs. I had forgotten to stow my bathing suit in the car that morning so I opted not to jump in and swim, which was probably a good thing because Chris said the water was rather chilly. He and Forest splashed around while I sprawled out on the ground next to the spring to relax a bit. Forest made…
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Paddling Juniper Run
One of the items on our list to do before we moved away from Florida was to paddle the Juniper Run in Ocala National Forest. Chris and I did paddle that run in 2009 and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s within the Juniper Prairie Wilderness so it doesn’t take much for you to feel as if you are in a very remote location. It rivals the feeling of being in areas of Big Cypress National Preserve or paddling the Turner River in Big Cypress/Everglades. The next time we’re in SW Florida I think we need to revisit the Turner River again. When we began planning out our limited time on our…
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Silver Springs State Park
After we left the Ocala National Forest, we drove towards Ocala and made a stop at Silver Springs State Park. It’s taken me some time to rack my brain and then look at Google Maps, but Chris and I had been here before in maybe 2007 or 2008. I recall a trip to Potts Preserve to look for orchids and maybe geocache and then a driving up to Ocala to geocache and I feel like we did something else in Ocala but maybe not. But, I did remember being somewhere near the town of Silver Springs because when we arrived there in June I definitely remembered the area. A quick…
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The 88 Store & The Florida Trail
After we left Astor Park and from visiting the Bartram Tree we continued west down SR 40 through Ocala National Forest. We had thought about going down to Alexander Springs at first but with the rain showers it didn’t seem like an ideal thing to do. Instead, Chris looked at the GPS and opted to head north on SR 19 towards Salt Springs into a part of the of the forest we hadn’t driven through before. Well, we’d been on a bit of it before, when we’d been transported from the end of the Juniper Springs Run at the Juniper Take-Out in 2009 when we’d paddled the Juniper Run. And…
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William Bartram Tree in Volusia County
After our visit to Deleon Springs, we headed west down SR40 towards Ocala National Forest. As we approached the town of Astor and the St. Johns River, I noticed a large live oak on the side of the road with a historical marker. Because we had nowhere specific to be, Chris pulled over and the three of us got out to see what made this tree interesting. The rain had mostly stopped at that point, maybe to drizzle, so a photo op was merited. William Bartram and his father John, were noted botanists and naturalists in the 1700s. They explored a large part of the eastern US during those early…